Imperial Space
by The Dark Porg
Summary: (COMPLETED Tuesday 25th June!) Once upon a time, there was a Star Wars where the Rebellion became a respected Galactic government. Peace, justice and the Jedi Order were restored. Han and Leia had a daughter called Jaina, who became a Jedi Knight, and married a TIE Pilot from the remnants of the Empire. He became their leader. She became his first lady. Then, this happened...
1. Chapter 1

From inside the Head of State's apartment came the sound of things being broken.

Outside the locked door, Moff Tagge exchanged glances with Moff Burren and Moff Sacker. As the only one of the three of them whose remit included no responsibility for security in the Imperial Tower, Tagge had been mildly appalled to discover that they'd allowed the High Moff and his wife a genuinely private penthouse without any monitoring devices, hidden cameras, computer overrides or secret access hatches.

Apparently, Imperial Intelligence had concluded that Her Excellency Jaina Solo Fel and the sharp-edge Alliance spybot she called an astromech would detect and disable anything they tried to put into the suite, and that in the absence of any security support, she could defend herself and her husband with her lightsaber if required.

Unfortunately, in the current circumstances, the problem with that plan was immediately apparent.

The one thing that the techs in the security foyer could tell them was that all the commlinks inside the apartment had been shot out, and the guards reported that the blast-doors to the private hangar had been sealed from the inside, and disconnected from the power grid.

"I guess I can hotwire this thing," Burren said eventually, and reached inside his tunic for some sort of skifter.

Tagge watched, trying not to tap his boot-sole on the floor. Sacker seemed to be holding back a sarcastic comment of some sort.

The door slid open. The three Moffs stepped quickly through.

The inside of the apartment was a mess. The cushions and pouf-couches of the lounge had all been shot, and someone had put a row of badly-aimed blaster-bolts into the full-height windows of the hermetic garden, apparently testing how many shots were needed to completely shatter a pane of military-grade armoured clearsteel. The ruined entertainment system against the carbon-scored end wall looked like the target of a strafing run.

"Kriff," Moff Sacker said, reaching for the blaster-pistol at her belt. Moff Tagge waved her down, and followed Burren past the crashed wreckage of a sculpure of a Clawcraft, towards the sound of other things being shot.

Jaina Solo swung round the corner from the bedroom in a firing-stance, aiming a blaster-pistol at them. The weapon was a Czerka holdout, he noted with a sort of abstract interest - snub-nosed, silenced, compact, trading range and accuracy for close-up power in each shot.

"Kriff," she said, flicking a stray hair back. Drunk. "A Mofference."

"You're pointing a gun at us," Moff Burren observed, deadpan droll.

Jaina blinked a couple times, making a puzzling expression, and seemed to realise she was contriving to hold enough of a marksman's pose to keep her gun pointed at them.

"You're the head of Imperial Intelligence," she said, lowering the weapon, though whether that was an explanation or simply a gesture of recognition, was hard to say. She essayed a sort of half-salute. Dark eyes flickered to Moff Tagge, questioning his presence.

"Moff Tagge," he introduced himself. "I believe you know Moff Burren. Moff Sacker."

If Jaina hadn't recognized the slender blonde woman in the black uniform, she certainly knew her name.

"So is this the eviction notice," she asked, turning away and holstering her pistol. She had a superb body, Tagge noted, and the expensive tailoring of her tight-fitted bodysuit gave them an undisguised good view of her waist's swaying curves and her butt's tight cleavage, as she wandered to the bar. She dropped the pistol neatly in her holster, but took two swipes to grab the bottle of alcohol sitting on the marble countertop.

Behind her back, the three Moffs exchanged glances. Sacker looked politely amused, a good way of disowning responsibility. Burren mugged an urgent gesture at Moff Tagge.

"Actually," Moff Tagge said. "We're here to offer you a promotion."

"Drunk Empress?" she laughed, and took a swig.

"Pretty much," Tagge grinned. "The Empire needs a figurehead, and none of us much liked your husband."

She gave a snort. "And you think I'll help you with a coup now that he's run off with my best friend?"

"Moff Fel left Imperial Space two days ago. If he wants to be the Queen of Hapes' boytoy, she's welcome to him."

Jaina Solo raised an eyebrow.

"We'd like you to take his job," Tagge told her candidly. She looked, for a moment, like she'd rather take his clothes off. "And found a dynasty to rule the Empire."

"Me and my potential for Jedi babies were always part of the package, right?" she asked, striking a poise against the bar. "Kriff, what am I doing."

"Considering revenge sex with at least a subcommittee of the Moff Council," Moff Sacker observed. "I'd be fine with that, in case you're worried about that part."

"Kriff no," she countered. "Jag gets, got, whatever, reports from private intel sources."

"You should never trust those," Moff Tagge inserted smoothly. From Burren, that would just sound like professional jealousy. From Sacker, inadequate denial. "Besides, you mean that Fel _paid_ for someone to tell him about Sacker's sex-life? The man must have been even stupider than he looked."

Jaina Solo snorted. "I like you," she drunked at him. She nodded at the other two. "And he's a bastard, she's a lesbian. This could be something good."

_So what are _you_, Jaina?_ Moff Tagge wondered. Although if the widespread rumours were to be believed, and the dossier he'd had his aides compile implied they were, he already knew the answer.

"Sober up first," he said aloud, looking at her seriously. "Then we can talk."

_I'm going to have to make the caf_, he realised. _Amn't I?_

* * *

_In case you need an explanation, I'm taking what I see as vulnerabilities in Jaina's subtext - a huge submissive kink and a bit of an Empire feitsh, accentuated by decades of being used to skewer things with lightsabers and proton torpedoes by her authority figures - and trying to write a story where that latent challenge is a key plot-point in a conventional plot._

_Moff Tagge and Moff Sacker were made up for the purposes of this story, though Tagge is supposed to be the nephew of the General from the first movie. Moff Burren is a substitute for a character borrowed from someone else's decidedly NSFW fanfic, because that seemed like an appropriate homage while I was writing this, but I'm not sure I can really mention that on this site. Most other Moffs and minor characters are from the Legends continuity..._


	2. Chapter 2

Her head hurt like she'd crashed face-first into a Star Destroyer. The apartment was a wreck. And she was sitting in the lounge, having coffee with some Moffs.

"Let me get this straight," Jaina said, sweeping back her messy hair again, trying to keep the bangs out of her eyes. "You want me to be _Empress_?"

She felt self-concious, awkward - partially because she was in that odd, off-balance mood where she was aware she was still drunk, but the hangover had already kicked in, and partially because she'd made a mistake sitting down on the couch she normally used to watch the holonet in a pair of stiff black knee-boots with ten-centimeter wedge-heels.

They were fine for stalking around shooting things, or for kicking out her legs in and relaxing, and she would normally have valued the extra height when negotiating with three Moffs who were all at least a head taller than she was, but now that she was trying to perch upright on a low seat, trying to at least _act_ sober as she let the Moffs talk her into taking her estranged husband's job, or Palpatine's, the extra height beneath her ankles, and the lack of flex in the toes, was starting to annoy her.

The fact she'd eviscerated most of the stuffing out of the back of the chair with her lightsaber didn't help. She was worried that any attempt at sitting back would just end in humiliation.

"We want to get the new political arrangements sorted quickly," Moff Sacker was explaining. She seemed to handle the political thinking. "Moff Reige and a small group of your ex-husband's other allies tried to seize control of the Council yesterday."

Jaina nodded, which felt weird. The drunk part of her and the part with the sort of hangover she'd not really had since she'd been an active-duty X-wing pilot really didn't go well together. She supposed she could use the Force to clear her head, but that was cheating, at least as far as the drunk part of her was concerned.

She supposed if she'd been sober, or if she'd simply bothered to pick up the comm, she might have helped Reige and his friends take power.

"_Ex_-husband?" she asked, belatedly. She had put off taking any legal action, at least for the two or three days since she'd realised Jag was actually going to leave her for Tenel Ka. Though she suposed that Jag would want things over quickly, considering he was apparently serious about ditching her and becoming the Prince Asshole of the Queen of Hapes.

"We already took the liberty of annulling the matrimonial contract. There were... irregularities."

She should have been annoyed at that. "You're testing me," she said. She meant that as accusation, but what came out was a flat statement.

"And how does that make you feel? Apart from divorced, obviously."

"Cooperative," she sighed. She really needed to take these boots off.

"Your... submissive proclivities," Moff Burren said, with a smile that looked suspiciously friendly, "are well-known to the Imperial authorities."

She tensed at that, and then kicked back. "That doesn't mean-!"

"No?" Moff Sacker was smiling at her now, holding her gaze.

"No." She exhaled, and looked at the floor, between Moff Burren's boots, and tried to put together a counter-argument. _I'm a Jedi. I'm a good girl_. She'd thought she'd kept her somewhat unconventional sex-life private, and apparently everything was common knowledge on the Moff Council.

"You look cute in a collar and a panel-gag," Moff Sacker added helpfully. "Needless to say, appointing you as Empress will commit us to ensuring that... certain holos... do not become more _public_ knowledge."

Jaina blushed. Was that blackmail? Should blackmail have made her feel turned-on?

"This is no different than what you know about Moff Sacker, or myself," Moff Burren added. Though there was an edge of pressure to his tone. _Clever bastard_. They were all in this together, except Moff Tagge, who Jag's spies had never been able to find much dirt on, except for ordinary things like occasional visits to strip clubs, that most Imperial soldiers seemed to go in for.

"Perhaps we should let her make her own mind up," Moff Tagge suggested gently. "If she isn't comfortable with this, she can always go back to the Rebels."

Jaina winced. That felt like a defeat. "I came here to improve the Empire," she said to herself, aloud.

But she wasn't sure she could do that by herself. Wasn't sure she could do that by working with these Moffs. Wasn't sure she not get far too comfortable with that position.

"Hang on," she said, reaching down and tugging off one boot, and then the other one. If she stood up now, she'd barely come up to Moff Sacker's breasts, but she needed to think clearly, and she couldn't do that with her ankles driving her crazy.

And if the Moffs wanted her to be Empress, they'd better know what they were letting themselves in for.

"Much better," she breathed, and took a sip of caf. She found herself wishing she was drinking whiskey. Or the Mandalorian grappa she'd been swigging from the bottle when the Moffs arrived. "I'm still not entirely sure of this." She gave a hiccup, and wondered if that was decorous, or not.

"There is one additional issue," Moff Burren said, holding up a palmtop holoprojector, showing a muscular blonde in the garish neon uniform and industrial-looking shackles of an Imperial prison inmate, flanked between two guards in white-and-black shock armour. Without warning, the girl in the holo swung her manacled fists into the midriff of the guard on her right, and a fast-moving two-on-one brawl quickly followed.

Jaina blinked. _Tahiri_. "That's-"

"Your former comrade, Jedi Veila," Moff Burren confirmed. "Or as she's now officially designated, Convict TQ7X9-V."

She looked confused. "How the _kark_ did you get this past my husband?"

"The authorisation was issued by Moff Fel," Burren told her. Looking straight at her, unblinking.

Jaina swore, loudly and angrily. She supposed they could be lying to her, but that would be easy enough to find out, once she sobered up, and she was reasonably sure they weren't stupid enough to let her catch them out like that.

Which meant her husband really had signed the warrant for Tahiri's arrest and incarceration. Without her knowing.

Jaina watched the holo. On the screen, the guards had beaten Tahiri down to the floor, and were busy shocking her into unconsciousness with their Force pikes.

_And the Jedi Order kept telling me she was on a mission_, Jaina breathed. She'd been lied to. To her face, repeatedly. By Uncle Luke.

"There was considerable pressure on the Moff Council for Jedi Veila's arrest and incarceration over her execution of Admiral Pellaeon," Moff Tagge was saying, calmly. "Including among Moff Fel's closest allies."

If they knew that Jag had secured Jedi cooperation to do this, they were keeping quiet about that. But that was one thing that she _could_ actually be sure of, she realised, with a sense of shock. Even drunk, her Jedi instincts were sharp enough to confirm that.

"And you have no motivation to release her," she finished. "But as Empress, or whatever you let me be, I'll be able to do that."

"You have the advantage that several of the Imperial Governors who pushed hardest for this are now in custody for complicity in Moff Reige's treason," Moff Sacker nodded.

"Speaking about that," she said suddenly, looking at them hard. "Are you sure you didn't just, you know, arrest the ones you didn't like?"

"I suspect the three of us would be in a Mandalorian standoff if we did that," Moff Tagge said, with a sudden grin. "This is about the Empire, m'lady."

"And about me," she said, with a sigh. Trying to make her hair stay back behind her right ear. "So I smile for the holos, have some Jedi babies, get my best friend out of prison, stop anyone else overthrowing you, and occasionally Tahiri and I get to be your discreet, problem-solving equivalent of Aunt Mara?"

"We would certainly not object to that arrangement," Moff Burren remarked smoothly. "The important thing for now is to have you appear in public, and announce your accession to the throne. Before anyone else tries to destabilise the situation."

"We're not so stupid as to imagine that Princess Leia's daughter will simply submit without resistance to a group of Moffs," Moff Sacker said, with a look that, at any other time, would have made Jaina blush. She'd done plenty of _submitting_ to Jag, and Reige, and several of their friends.

"If you're lying about _any_ of this," she said. "I'll _personally_ disembowel you with a lightsaber when I take power for myself."

"I think she's figured out that her Rebel friends sold Jedi Veila to Imperial Correction," Moff Sacker teased. "We'll have the full dossier on your screen the moment you sit down in your office, if that's any use to you."

Jaina gave a dark look. They'd stripped her of her trust in the Jedi Order, and anywhere else to go. "Did you _plan_ this?"

Moff Tagge laughed. "M'lady, we could hardly arrange for your husband and Tenel Ka to decide to run off and get married, or whatever Hapans do, or for Moff Reige to be such a vain idiot as to move without a majority of the Council in support. We're simply improvising."

_Will of the Force or something, then_, Jaina exhaled. _And they need to keep the people who want a more liberal Empire feeling like that's still a realistic prospect_, she concluded, feeling surprisingly clear-headed now.

"So I guess I'm the token moderniser," she said, standing up uncertainly. Barefoot, she really was a lot shorter than any of them. But she didn't care. She reached out with her right hand, and called her lightsaber to her palm.

They didn't need to know she'd taken the power core out the day before - mostly because she was worried she might have an accident when she was using the weapon as an improvised sex-toy. She clipped the weapon to her belt, and looked up at her Moffs.

"Welcome to the Empire, Lady Vader," Moff Tagge nodded, almost smiling at her.

She gave them a baleful glare, but conceded that the name was going to fit her like a leather glove. "_Empress_ Vader," she corrected. She was surprised by the growl she put into her voice.

"As Your Highness wishes," Burren nodded, looking very pleased indeed. That was that.

_Did I just declare myself the Empress?_ Jaina asked herself, and realised, still a bit drunk, that she had.


	3. Chapter 3

By tea-time, everything was official. More or less.

As her first official action as ruler of the Empire, Jaina had ordered Tahiri released from prison and brought to Bastion, and Moff Tagge had commed his Super Star Destroyer to jump out of orbit go and pick her up.

The fact they'd _had_ a Super Star Destroyer waiting overhead was something she found a little disconcerting, but now Tagge had sent the _Rapier_ off to bring back her friend, and Jaina supposed that meant they'd got the situation under control.

She felt a little giddy when she realised she now had a Super Star Destroyer running about on errands for her, but she decided that the sensation was mostly to do with being drunk rather than letting power go to her head, so at that point she shook off the idea that she could use the ship for shopping trips or take-out meals from out-of-system, and decided she could use the Force to sober up instead.

That done, it was time for her to get ready to address the Empire.

She'd let Sacker and Burren talk her through what needed to be said, while an androgynous protocol droid sent over from Imperial HoloNet styled her hair, polished her nails, and picked out a white costume with a wrap-over cloak and nerfhide thigh-boots, and then she'd taken the turbolift down to the bottom of the Tower, and stood at the podium overlooking the kilometer-wide emptiness of the parade ground, with her assembled Moffs behind her - not just the three who'd talked her into this, but some of the others from all the different factions, including one or two of Jag's more cautious supporters who hadn't gone along with Moff Reige's power-grab, all of whom had agreed to support her candidature.

Even with the heels on her new boots, she was still the shortest person on the podium.

She read a short statement, emphasising words like _betrayal_, and dismissing her ex-husband as a man who'd abandoned his duty, then conceding that she'd accepted the invitation to put herself forward as the new leader of the Empire.

Then she'd walked to the Moff Council chamber, with Burren, Tagge, and Sacker - conscious that she'd just declared exactly who her most important allies were. The other Moffs came along in a group, a little after them. Perhaps they just didn't want to associate quite so directly with her.

Tagge and Burren were still making comm calls, and she realised they were still canvassing for votes, but they said they were already confident of getting all the Moffs they needed.

A couple more Moffs joined them in the chamber, either arriving by limousine from their apartments in the capital or by shuttle from elsewhere, while enough of the rest appeared by hologram to give them the two-thirds quorum they required. Moffe Tagge leaned over, and told her which ones were her supporters. At first, it looked like the number was going to be tight, but a couple more flickered in while the short preamble to the vote was going on, and Tagge's satified nods told her that they were supporters he'd commed up.

There were still some gaps in the curving arrangement of command chairs, the unlit spaces which denoted absent Moffs - but she was strangely reassured when she added them up, and confirmed that most of them were the seats of men who had been arrested with Moff Reige. Only a very few were simply failing to participate.

But she would have to fill those empty chairs. She'd already decided to push for the conspirators to be replaced by senior officers in their own Sector administrations, to ensure continuity and build a broad consensus which incorporated as much as possible of the wreckage of Jag's reforming faction. She'd try to issue pardons for the conspirators, as well - she could always have them locked back up if any of them were so stupid as to conspire against her coalition.

Or maybe that was because she'd sucked Vitor Reige's cock almost as much as Jag's during their marriage, and she was just being stupid and submissive again.

Jaina stood there while the Moffs debated what her new title was going to be. They'd agreed, in principle, that she would become the Empress, but on the recommendation of the intractable Kurlen Flennic, they agreed to postpone her official acclamation until they'd worked out some way of getting a form of assent from the citizens. Then there was a brisk ill-tempered debate about her surname. No-one really seemed to want a Solo, she was determined not to be a Fel, and there were some Moffs with long memories who didn't like the idea of Lady Vader either, so she solved the problem by saying she could just be Jaina.

Burren smiled, and banged the gavel for the vote, and seconds later, she was Grand Moff Jaina, Head of State of the Galactic Empire.

"That went well, Your Highness," Moff Burren smiled at her. Apparently, her new backers were going to accord her the Imperial title anyway.

She wasn't in the mood to resist them. She wondered if she would feel less understanding about the Moffs who wanted to put obstacles in the way of her becoming Empress.

And then the Council adjourned. Most of them had missed lunch.


	4. Chapter 4

As she waited for Tahiri to arrive, she went back to the top of the Tower, taking charge of her security and her personal arrangements. She took over the entire top section of the Imperial Tower, seventeen floors above the uppermost internal guard line, even if that seemed like far too much space for a divorcee whose only important possessions were her astro-droid and her broken lightsaber.

The fixed emplacements of automated quad-laser and ion-scatterguns in the guard line had the advantages that they were designed to defend against attacks from below, which meant they couldn't be used in coups against her. She decided she wanted a squad of DT-4 battle-droids for her personal guard - they were Imperial versions of the Tendrando Arms YVH series, the products of a contract she'd helped Uncle Lando get, and she was pretty sure she could ensure that they were hardwired to be completely loyal to her.

Then she'd commed her mom and dad. At least, she was given a new commlink bracelet which had her old contacts list backed up - a tacit admission from Moff Burren that Imperial Intelligence had sliced her files - and Moff Tagge explained that the red light on the black wristband meant there was a call incoming.

He seemed amused that she let him listen in on the discussion with her parents.

Her dad had told her he'd never liked Jag Fel, and he'd made her laugh by asking if she was in touch with Kyp, or Zekk, or Finn, or Lowie. Her mom just told her how proud she was. Jaina realised that, in a strange way, she was continuing the work her mom had done, when she'd been an Imperial Senator, standing up for justice within the Empire's political machine.

That made he feel a whole lot better about what she was doing.

Her astromech was already tidying up, scooting across the lounge with assassinated cushions, and the protocol droid from Imperial Holonet was going through her wardrobe, apparently ordering her new clothes.

"You really called your astro-droid Spanker?" Moff Tagge asked, standing beside her as she tried to tidy up the wreckage of the lounge bar.

"_Don't_," Jaina said. She was glad she didn't blush, but she poured herself another drink all the same.

"I guess the rumours about you are true, then," he grinned, which made her laugh.

And then someone commed him to say that Tahiri was on her way. She routed the shuttle to the rooftop pad rather than the private hangar, because she wasn't sure if anyone had fixed the hatch she'd sabotaged with her lightsaber, and anyway, she wanted to run up the stairs to the top of the Tower. She downed her glass of _tihaar_, appointed Moff Tagge as head of tidying-up, and set off at what she'd meant to be a jog, but quickly became a drunken teeter, as she realised she was wearing spiky six-inch heels.

She wasn't so drunk that she couldn't sense at least one Moff checking out her ass behind her back.

The shuttle landed just as she got there, wide wings folding up, and Tahiri hurried down the landing ramp - wearing a plain grey jumpsuit of some sort, looking like she wasn't sure what was going on, then breaking into a sprint when she saw Jaina waiting for her by the door.

They hugged, tight together on the duracrete platform, with the wind embracing them both. Tahiri was still stronger, or at least a bit more muscular, but she didn't seem like prison had changed her for the worse.

"So there's been a change of plan?" Tahiri asked, looking at her with a sort of happy confusion.

Jaina's confusion was more disoriented. "Plan? What plan?"

"The plan where I went to prison so you and Jag could bring the Empire into line with the Force," Tahiri told her, with a frown which made her forehead scars wrinkle. "Master Skywalker told me what I had to do..."

She blinked, apparently realising for the first time that maybe no-one had told Jaina.

"_Sith_," Jaina swore. That should have been obvious. But there was nothing she could do about that now. "Uncle Luke never told _me_ that you agreed to this," she countered, poking an accusatory finger at her friend. In fact, he'd never told her _anything_, even when she asked him to his face.

Even though her husband had been in on the whole thing from the start.

The reason why they'd done that was starting to make sense to Jaina, considering that she'd just let herself be talked into becoming the figurehead for the Moffs who weren't exactly on the Jedi side, in order to spring Tahiri from her prison asteroid.

"I thought you needed rescued," Jaina explained, eventually.

"So, what's going on?" Tahiri asked, with a shrug. "I don't mind the lack of ysalamiri," she smiled. She seemed happy with the rescue, after all. "The commander aboard the Star Destroyer said Jag ran off with Tenel Ka."

Jaina exhaled. She was Empress now, in all but name. She could do whatever she wanted, even turn down the role she'd just spent the afternoon getting into. Especially now that there were two of them with lightsabers.

"I need a Captain of the Guard," she explained, instead. She had no idea what the Imperial term was. "You'll be in charge of my security, with a squad of Dark Trooper droids, I'm afraid, you'll help me stare down the Moffs when they're being difficult, and occasionally we'll go and solve the Empire's problems with our lightsabers."

"Sounds interesting," Tahiri nodded. "So who are our new Moffs? Reige? Dorja?"

"Reige was the one who insisted you were put in prison," Jaina breathed. That provoked a surprised reaction from Tahiri, eyebrows raised and emotions unguarded in the Force. "Burren, Sacker, Tagge," she conceded, feeling a little weak.

Tahiri gave her a more curious look. "Jaina, are you _drunk_?" she asked.

"A little," Jaina shrugged "Not as much as I was when they talked me into this."

She looked around, at the windswept landing pad, the open sky beyond the parapet, and the stormtrooper guards standing as a circle around the rooftop of the Tower. They were supposed to have been pulled back below Floor 69. She wondered which Moff they took orders from. She supposed she could order them away. Or order them to do anything she wanted.

"Come on," she said, turning round towards the turbolift. "Let's get indoors. I... spent the past few days putting blaster and lightsaber holes in most of my furniture. I left a couple of Moffs and Spanker trying to put everything back upright."

"So I get to tidy up your apartment as my first official duty?" Tahiri smiled, with a look which said she'd be happy to help out as a friend.

"No, you have to sign some forms and swear an oath of allegiance to me before any of this is official," Jaina countered. "Until then, you're technically still a prisoner, fetched here purely by my whim."

"So I'm slave labour?" Tahiri smiled, as they stepped inside the turbolift.

"If you like," Jaina answered, as the lift began the short drop to her quarters. "I'm not really much of a domme, though."

"Are you sure we should be trusting this new set of Moffs with a couple of lightsaber-wielding problem-solvers as sexually submissive as you and me?" Tahiri asked.

"Not really," Jaina breathed. "No."


	5. Chapter 5

Moff Tagge offered a short bow as Jaina came back into the apartment, followed now by Tahiri Veila.

There was a sister-like closeness between the two of them, he noted - literally, in that as they seemed to share their personal space without any self-consciousness, fitting around each other's body language like a pair of fighter pilots on patrol. The resemblance was accentuated by a certain similarity of posture and proportion, though that was very much assisted by the heels that Jaina was wearing, which lifted her height to match her friend's, and made her seem more slender than she was in her bare feet.

"Moff Tagge," Jaina smiled. "I'm sure you recognize my new bodyguard. I'm not sure what rank or title is appropriate, but I want her in charge of my security, with full clearance."

"Your Highness," he answered, with another nod, stepping forward to fall in step with them as Jaina turned left behind the seating area - towards the bar again, he noted.

Even the apparent contrasts between the two girls were really counterpoints, he decided. Jaina was looking the part of the Empire's new leader in her smart white costume, stylishly offset by the black accessories of her lightsaber and commlink cuff and the neat updo of her dark hair, whereas her blonde friend was wearing a simple black jumpsuit which someone aboard his command ship must have found for her, and her hair was totally unstyled, leaving only her superb figure to define her identity; but Jaina's expressiveness and Tahiri's quieter attitude balanced well, like the blade and hilt of the same weapon.

The Moff found himself wondering if they could swap roles just as well, or work together in different ways.

One difference between them was clear, though - Jaina needed a drink. She was rummaging through the mostly-empty bottles, probably looking for the Mandalorian brandy she'd been wandering around the room with earlier.

"Should you be drinking that?" Tahiri asked, as Jaina selected something with a slosh of yellow spirits in the bottom.

Jaina shrugged, and took a swig. "Hangover cure," she said.

Moff Tagge took the opportunity to fix himself a whiskey - a gratifyingly expensive bottle of menkooro that he suspected had belonged to Moff Fel. To his surpise, Tahiri slipped into the space on his left, and poured herself a soda.

"So," Tahiri asked. "Are you here officially, or just hanging around because you have nowhere better to be right now?"

"I'm stealing Moff Fel's whiskey," he observed. "You're stealing his soda."

"To the Empire," Tahiri suggested, without any apparent irony, lifting her glass in a sort of salute.

"The Empire," Jaina agreed, lifting her glass.


	6. Chapter 6

Jaina paced around her apartment, frowning at the new chairs which had arrived to replace the ones she'd destroyed when she was drunk. They were very... Imperial.

She supposed that was appropriate, and she didn't exactly object to the design - long black nerfhide loungers, with sloped backs and squared armrests, bold seams, visible chrome supports, arranged at smart right-angles around a large, low table of steel-edged glass.

She'd just expected that being the Empress, even if her title wasn't yet completely official, would have allowed her to choose her own furniture.

Instead, she'd found everyone making decisions for her. The decisions were always made behind her back, and the results had usually been put in place before she could really object. She wasn't exactly sure who was responsible for which parts of the transformation of her private life. Perhaps the Moffs were slowly setting out to enslave her. Perhaps Tahiri was just flirting. Certainly, her astromech seemed to be entering into the game of Dom-the-Rebel with enthusiasm. She'd had to revoke the droid's security clearance three times now, most recently when she came home and found an entire new music collection shelved beneath the holovids - ENC, the Blurtones, Hutt, classic Imperial bands that Jag and Reige had liked.

Some days, she seriously thought about taking Moff Tagge's command ship for a quick shopping trip to some Alliance system, just to work off stress. And buy herself some furniture. Stuff with softwood trim and cushions.

She wandered over to the bar, and pulled the stopper on a bottle of Sullustan gin. Someone had ordered her a whole new shelf of alcohol, shiny varieties of cheap spirits which were designed to simply get her drunk, with a couple of Jag's old whiskeys hanging on the end for Moff Tagge.

She frowned at that. The Moffs had taken to calling on her to discuss the running of the Empire, turning her private quarters into a public committee room for planning meetings. Jaina wondered if she should insist on holding those discussions somewhere else. Shrugged, and took a slug of the iced gin. She was in charge, in theory.

In practice, she was drinking too much. She liked the idea of Moff Tagge drinking through Jag's whiskey. And having a fridge with ice-cubes, pre-chilled glasses, and little bottles of cheap soda for Tahiri. Some of what the Empire decided she needed wasn't bad at all.

She turned, and looked at the holographic image displayed on the end wall, squinting and tilting her head as she watched the replay of her own recorded expression - eyes glazed,lips silently panting, big round nametag bouncing on her slave-collar, bare shoulders shaking a little with the effort of staying on all fours for an hour or more, on the receiving end of everyone else's sexual creativity. The footage of the orgy had come pre-loaded in her new holosuite, apparently a present from Moff Sacker or Moff Burren. Tahiri had been amused, reminding Jaina that she _liked_ that sort of thing being done to her, and insisted that they keep the recording on whenever there weren't Moffs around. _Modern art_.

Jaina frowned again, exhaled, and took a deeper swig. The Empire had also replaced her wardrobe - the actual unit was a new one with plain metal doors, twice the size of the old one and the entire choice clothing inside now consisted of various Moff's uniforms, and a selection Imperial civilian fashions which looked a lot like extra uniforms, plus a whole range of boots, most of which were half a size too small, and a limited choice of skimpy black panties and tops from her old underwear collection. That made sense, too, as that range of outfits was what a Grand Moff, or an Empress, was expected to appear in, and Imperial shoe sizes didn't quite match Rebel ones, and of course, she was only allowed to dress in Imperial-made clothes now - but she'd expected to have some say in what she _wore_.

She laughed.

"Something's funny?" Tahiri asked, strutting out of the bedroom they now shared, and reaching behind her back to fasten up her body armour. "How do I look?"

"I'm just thinking my submissive streak's an asset for this job," Jaina shrugged, eyeing her friend and bodyguard appreciatively. "You look great, though," she grinned.

Tahiri's new uniform was based on the shiny red armour which the old Royal Guards had worn under their long cloaks - the main differences, apart from a form-fitting breastplate,being that her version incorporated a choker and wristbinders, which doubled as curved throat and forearm guards to block lightsaber blows, and she'd insisted on a pair of rednerfhide thigh-boots with twelve-centimeter stiletto heels - which she was wearing now, though Jaina had insisted that she would use practical flats on duty, to stop her standing too tall over her, with armour up to the knee, and padded black breeches that showed off the taut curves of her upper legs.

That had been the _one_ argument that Jaina had won so far, with any of her subordinates. Perhaps because that was practically the only instance where she'd voiced any objections at all.

Jaina suddenly felt very self-conscious of the fact that she'd taken to wearing whatever outfit she found laid out for her when she got up - today's choice was an undress uniform, a style which Moff Sacker said had always been popular with female officers - a single-breasted tunic with a very high collar and a tight waist-belt, and straight-leg trousers over spike-heeled ankle-boots, deceptively simple, but tailored to her body in a way that made the style seem very feminine, and cut in a charcoal fabric which showed off the glossy patina of the leather accessories.

The collar on the jacket was also high enough to conceal the silver bondage choker she was wearing underneath.

"You know I like that costume you're in now as well," Tahiri remarked, strolling over and smirking at her, letting her eyes travel over Jaina, then running her finger up the lapel of her jacket.

"Who turned you into a switch?" Jaina asked, weakly.

"A girl can only lick so many butch guards' pussies before she starts to want to domme the pretty girls herself," Tahiri answered, her smile teasing. "But you're supposed to feel sexy and flattered when I complement you. Your Highness."

Jaina blushed, and put down her drink. "Kriff, I missed you."

"I missed you, too," Tahiri agreed, taking Jaina's body in her arms, a move which made Jaina feel strangely like a glass of whiskey, something shiny and trembling to be cupped and drunk from.

In response, Jaina's own hand grabbed Tahiri's hair, and dragged her mouth down to meet her lips. She was the Grand Moff, Empress in all but name. She could do that. She _needed_ that.

And Tahiri knew that, too.

"Now we have to just take these uniforms off again," she growled.

* * *

_In case anyone's paying attention, this update was a little later than planned, as this scene ended up being thought-about and slightly edited..._


	7. Chapter 7

Now, the Moffs could just walk straight into Jaina's apartment.

Moff Burren had changed the security system so that a simple passcode on the turbolift keypad let the three of them straight through the defenses of the guard line, and the apartment door slid open automatically when the sensors detected the IDs they were carrying.

So far, Jaina hadn't objected, and Tahiri hadn't tried to reprogram the computer settings.

Moff Tagge wasn't sure how long they'd be able to get away with that. Both girls clearly had a submissive streak wide enough to fly his command ship through, and for different reasons, their loyalty to the Empire could probably be counted on for now; but the two of them were starting to learn their way around the command procedures and computer systems which governed their surroundings - at least, they'd started ordering in ryshcate, blue milk and hubba flakes, and successfully locked-out Jaina's astromech from buying any more inappropriate presents for her - and between them, they'd also assassinated two of the Empire's previous three heads of state, so they could probably be dangerous if they were pushed too far.

_On the other hand_, he thought, as he caught sight of the cinematic hologram which had appeared on the end wall of the lounge. A space which had been strangely blank on their previous visits was now filled by a larger-than-life-sized image-clip of a bondage-shackled Jaina Solo quivering in submissive satisfaction, bent over on all fours while a man in Imperial uniform took up a position behind.

"Anyone home?" Moff Sacker called out, with a wicked grin.

A vague noise from the direction of the bedroom answered them, and the three Moffs exchanged glances and set off towards the interior of the apartment. As far as Tagge could tell, no attempts had been made to adjust the details of the Imperial refurbishment, and he liked what that implied about Jaina's personality - either she had decided that she genuinely liked the enforced makeover, or she was submitting without resistance to the outer form.

Then they walked into the bedroom, brightened by the morning light that slanted through the high panes overhead - and stopped short in something like surprise.

Pieces of discarded armour and uniform were strewn around the room, and on the big square bed against the back wall, two girls were tangled up in a twist of white sheets, bare feet and shapely legs on show.

Someone made a muffled noise - perhaps an involuntary laugh.

"Ladies," Moff Tagge nodded.

There was an awkward pause as someone unfastened a handcuff chain from around the headboard, and then they rolled around slowly, pulling the sheets up to screen their breasts and blinked at the three Moffs, as if guilty and surprised - Jaina's dark hairdo all askew, Tahiri's tousled blonde bounce even more messed-up than usual, their contrasting appearance emphasised by the differing designs of the bondage-collars locked around their necks. Tahiri still had on the glossy lipstick-red choker that she wore as part of her armour, while Jaina's was a slimline band of shiny metal with the Imperial badge printed at the front, the sort of thing that could be worn discreetly beneath the high neckline of a uniform.

"Sith," Jaina said, and laughed a little.

"Just Moffs," Burren smirked at her. "Get dressed. We have politics to discuss."

Tagge had been about to make a polite tactical retreat to the lounge, but the other two were clearly staying there to watch, expectant looks on both their faces, so he shrugged, and did the same.

"Nothing here we didn't see already on your screensaver, Your Highness," Sacker grinned.

Tahiri looked almost like she might object, but Jaina shook her head and rolled out of bed, then started getting dressed, pulling on the dark trousers and collarless white shirt of her uniform, without bothering to find underwear.

Tagge watched, wondering if the momentary gesture she'd exchanged with Tahiri - fingers touching forearm - was part of any formal code, or just a sign of comfort between girls who'd recently had sex. Tahiri had stayed in bed, holding one corner of the sheet to her throat to cover up her body, while using her free hand to remove her slave-collar and the matching cuffs around her wrists. That seemed an odd thing to do if she was going to put her armour on, Tagge thought, but his gaze was drawn back to Jaina, who was fumbling to fasten up her shirt, and getting everything hopelessly squint.

She gave up - one shirt-tail hanging down towards her knee, the other quickly rumpled up and stuffed into her trousers in a way that showed an interesting flash of waist, the upper part left open and flopped wide, placing most of her cleavage on public view.

"Good look," Sacker nodded. "I've had girlfriends like you."

Jaina ran a hand through her hair to try to straighten out the snarls, and led the way back out to the lounge, followed by the Moffs. Tahiri took up the rear, wrapping herself in Jaina's white sheets for modesty, and picking up a lightsaber from somewhere on the bed. There was something very different in her body-language compared with Jaina's - a different way of walking barefoot, and a different attitude to the action, Tagge supposed.

Tagge broke rank as they came back out into the lounge, and headed quickly through to the back of the apartment to make some caf - a bright domestic little space with a big window looking out across the city, to a horizon that was impressively wide this high up. A little square table for two had been added below the window, with stools that the girls would look cute perched on. There was a bottle of cheap Whyren's sitting on the counter, which made him realise Jaina seemed a bit hung over, so he dosed her caf with a generous splosh, and took the drink back out.

Jaina was sitting down in on the lounger, where she'd been when they persuaded her to become their leader. Burren and Sacker stood opposite, like instructors with a young trainee, while Tahiri had taken up a position on the higher level where the doors through to the kitchen and the bedroom were. Seen from the rear, she was naked from bare heels to blonde hair, with just a fold of bundled bedsheet wrapped over one hip, her tight ass drawing Tagge's attention - and admiration - as he came back through.

Tagge stepped around her, and reached down to hand Jaina the drink.

"Thanks," she said weakly. She took a sip, lifted her eyebrows when she tasted the alcohol, then nodded, apparently in approval, or acceptance.

"You need to start chairing the Moff Council," he told her bluntly. "Your modernising credentials make you acceptable to the remains of Fel's support, your lack of real ability to do anything makes you _very_ acceptable to the rest of us, but we do genuinely appreciate the fact that a neutral voice can arbitrate between the factions, and prevent the debate from getting stuck in rivalries."

Jaina seemed to think that over.

"The only reason why Fel was tolerable was that his faction were so weak," Sacker explained. "They needed to cut consensus deals across the Council, so we allowed him the illusion that he was running things by doing that. But the past few sessions have underlined the lack of alternative candidates to take the throne."

They'd rotated through all the remaining nonentities in the chair - Freyborn and Pike and Edan - with results which had managed to be both ill-tempered and unproductively dull. No-one was looking forward to a session chaired by Flennic, the senior Moff, or by Sacker herself, the nearest thing to a compromise candidate among the others.

Jaina nodded slowly, sipped her caf. "I watched the holos," she conceded.

"Have you been reading the reports we send you, too?"

"Naval projects and recruitment figures for approval," she said. Another nod. "I have views on how many TIEs a frigate needs, but I couldn't tell you how many stormtroopers a planet ought to have. Budget tables that I don't even begin to understand. There's a pirate problem in Moff Dorja's former sector that looks like something she's not _tried_ to bring under control."

"Schedule a meeting with me for the procurement issues," Tagge interjected. He was the soldier, or at least the one who was most involved in that side of soldiering, so Sacker and Burren generally deferred to him about the details. "The prosecutor looking into Moff Reige's treason can have his investigation widened to address the question of other related criminal activity."

"Speaking of which," Tahiri interjected. Seen from the front, she had Jaina's bedsheets wrapped diagonally across her body - barely covering her crotch, and doing nothing to conceal her splendid physique. She also had her lightsaber in her free hand, and a prisoner's ID-tattoo on her upper arm above the bicep, neither of which seemed out of place. "Jaina wants to pardon them."

"I still think they can be useful to us," Jaina said. She was looking past them, at the holo on the wall. Tagge glanced round, and recognized the posture of the man who was fucking her in the recording. _Ah_.

"I think," Burren said, carefully. "Your... _fondness_, for Moff Reige, and some of your husband's other associates, may be affecting your judgement here, Your Highness."

Jaina breathed, took another sharp sip of her caf. Blushing at a memory. "Even so. They're modernisers. They have support."

_Less than you might think_, Tagge thought, but he was interested to see how far she'd assert herself.

"I'm... not unaware of some of the stupid things they did, but I still think that bringing them back in would be a good sign of reconciliation," she said. She glanced back at Tahiri. "Even if my bodyguard might disagree. I know they were the ones who locked you up..."

"They did more than that, actually," Tahiri shrugged. "Reige and Jag... visited me regularly in prison. Not to... be nice, either."

"_What?!_" Jaina's eyes went wide. The way the two of them were looking at each other suddenly had the energy of a lovers' argument.

"I like that sort of thing," was Tahiri's only answer. Her voice was calm, but she seemed very quiet. Not for the first time, her strength impressed him. "Mostly."

"So do you," Burren pointedly reminded Jaina. A deft change of the subject, Tagge realised.

An awkward silence followed. Jaina frowned. "I..."

"The Hapan issue," Sacker interjected. "Tagge?"

"Some of our colleagues want you to show a hard line," Tagge exhaled. "Expelling and recalling consular personnel, reimposing customs barriers."

"I'm not so sure," Jaina said. She frowned. "I really don't see any point wasting time with my ex-husband. Our trade with Hapes is beneficial for both sides, and while we have allies in their ruling class, we just got rid of all their trouble-making sympathisers here. We lose that if we go into this. If Tenel Ka, or Master Skywalker, wants to talk to me directly, they have my private comm." She gestured with her wrist, showing the tight chrome strap of her bracelet. Evidently, she had uploaded her comm files from her normal wristband to the bondage cuff.

Burren and Sacker exchanged a look. Both of them had been pushing for a 'demonstrative' response, and they hadn't anticipated anything like that. Tagge concealed his grin. Whatever else she was, Jaina Solo thought tactically, with the practical efficiency of a fighter pilot.

"So who _has_ contacted you?" Burren asked. Jaina gave him a puzzled look - she had evidently known that Intelligence were monitoring her calls - then realised he was testing her, confirming her willingness to be completely open with them.

"Mom and dad," she said. "Uncle Lando. Lobbying for contracts." She gave a wry grin. "Lowie. Oh. Talking fast in Wookiee, so you probably need me to confirm some parts of the translation." For a moment, she looked almost amused. "Mirta Gev, Anja Gallandro, both of them hustling. I can ignore them. And Ben," she said, with a flicker of vulnerability that Tagge didn't completely follow.

The list was short, but complete. The rest of the people who Jaina had been close to were all loyal members of the Jedi Order or the Hapan court, and they'd sided with their leaders. She seemed to be conscious of just how few real friends she had. Of just how little she had in the way of a genuine identity of her own.

Until they'd taken over, her social life on Bastion had consisted of being fucked by Moffs.

_Poor little Rebel_, Tagge thought, wryly.

"I'm still surprised you three haven't tried to put me back in jail," Tahiri remarked casually.

"They like you," Sacker shrugged. "Shooting Pellaeon saved Burren from having to intervene in Daala's meddling himself. And Tagge's not the sort to go in for personal retaliation. I think they get a bit turned on by the idea of a decorative Jedi girl in a bondage collar, too."

Jaina looked at the female Moff curiously. "And you?"

Sacker laughed. "I supported Jacen."

"She gave me the kriffing _blaster_," Tahiri emphasised. And Jaina, finally, understood.

"Wait a minute," she said, blinking, looking round from Tahiri to Moff Sacker and back again, with wide eyes, and a quick turning motion which made her shiny choker flash.

"Two cynical blondes aboard the same command ship," Sacker smirked, "both wearing tight uniforms and wanting to kill the same people."

Tahiri did a good job of a casual shrug.

"Is there anyone here you've _not_ been fucked by?" Jaina asked, sounding a little exasperated

"Moff Tagge and Moff Burren," Tahiri shrugged, with a nod across the room to the two of them. "Not yet, anyway." She flattered them with a cheerful smile. "I know they'd both quite like to, though. You can order me to do that, if you like?".

* * *

_Some complicated themes in this one. Again, a slight last-minute edit to the draft, but I wanted to get my update schedule back on track. There's still a line in there I'm not completely sure about, either as character or as continuity, but I_ think_ that makes sense as written..._


	8. Chapter 8

With seventeen floors in her extended quarters, Jaina had more space than she knew what to do with. An expanded hangar complex was going in at the top, and the lowest deck above the guard line was going to be a barracks for the DT-4 droid platoon, but that still left an awful lot of free room. As Tahiri had said, they couldn't convert _all_ that unused space into detention blocks to play Inquisitor-and-Rebel in, and the increasingly absurd suggestions they'd come up with, curled up together on the sofa with a terrible old Imperial holonovel on the player, had made them giggle uncontrollably.

To start with, though, they'd had several partitions taken out on the levels immediately above the droid barracks, to create a large training room - they already had a little gym for toning, weights and stretches, which had replaced the glass-walled arboretum off the lounge, but they needed a bigger workout space for things like lightsaber sparring, target-shooting, and rope-climbing. The new space rose through three floors, and spanned more than half of the footprint of the tower. More than big enough.

Unfortunately, they'd forgotten to put in a locker room.

"Would you really have had sex with them?" Jaina asked, unbuttoning her shirt, and stripping naked to the waist.

"I like doing what you tell me to," Tahiri smiled, eyeing Jaina's body. "In public, anyway."

Jaina blushed in response, pushing down her trousers so that she was almost naked for a moment, and then began pulling on the sleeveless black jumpsuit that served as an undergarment for her new armour. The armour was similar in style to Tahiri's, but came in two-tone black rather than glossy red, and lacked the optional sleeve and shoulder plates which gave the blonde girl's version the protection of miniature armoured vehicle - just a segmented corset, crotch-guard, and a chest-plate with a shiny built-in collar which fastened over her choker, and armoured knee-boots, with wedge-heels that were flexible enough to fight in, while lifting her height to match her sparring partner.

The result was a sleeveless black ensemble, tough and stylish but very easy to move around in, reminiscent of the sort of infiltration gear which that Mara Jade Skywalker had favoured.

Aunt Mara had been Jaina's Jedi Master as well as part of the family, so she felt that the homage was appropriate; considering that Mara's preference for this sort of costume had derived from the outfits which she'd worn in her original career as Palpatine's favourite assassin, the choice of costume seemed suitable in a very Imperial way, as well.

Jaina picked up her lightsaber from the floor beside her discarded shirt. The weapon seemed Imperial, too - a slim black cylinder, the lower half strapped around with nerfhide to provide a grip, the upper section smooth and plain except for the raised switch which activated the blade. The combination of function and aesthetic integrity was something that had always appealed to her.

Though when she was drunk, she used the weapon as a sex-toy.

"Did you fix that thing?" Tahiri asked.

Jaina gave her a wry look. "_Someone_ was distracting me."

"You're fun to distract," Tahiri shrugged. "Now let's see how much of this we still remember."

Jaina thumbed her lightsaber's hilt, and centred her posture behind the weapon. The meter-long blade of laser light had ignited cleanly, but there was a slight rasp to the sound of the energy coursing through the focusing array, and a flicker to the weapon's light, the sort of off-beat tuning which would give the energy blade the equivalent of a serrated cutting edge. She wondered if that was just a side-effect of the new synthetic crystal which she'd swapped in for her old Jedi one, but Tahiri's blade, using an identical gem, had a more confident note, and a steadier light.

Tahiri lunged before Jaina was quite ready, and then the sparring match was on. She gave ground against her red-armoured friend, trying to get the rhythm and pattern of her movements, looking for the moment when she could shift onto the attack and start dictating the timing of their encounter for herself.

The two blades made a buzzing noise when Tahiri's clashed against her own.

"You sure you fixed that thing?"

"Perfect tuning for disemboweling and castrating former Moffs."

"Not the current ones?"

"Nah, I like them."

And then she caught Tahiri's thrust, stepped around, and swept her blade forward, forcing her opponent to defend and stumble back.

Jaina danced, lunging into the opening left by Tahiri's hasty, one-handed blocking move. Tahiri swayed back to let the blade pass cleanly in front of her waist, then flipped away and resumed her thrusting attack. Somehow, she'd taken the initiative back already.

"You're good," Jaina noticed.

"Partially because I know I don't need to hold back," Tahiri grinned, "because you can match anything I throw at you." There was a little breathlessness to her voice. That suited her. "Whereas _you_ are feeling self-conscious about cutting off people's arms."

"Maybe you should wear your sleeves?" Jaina offered. She'd cut off her brother's arm. Uncle Luke had lost a hand to Vader, who had lost most of his limbs to Obi-Wan Kenobi. "We don't have a good reputation where this is concerned."

"I'm part-Vong," Tahiri grinned. "Amputation turns me on."

Jaina snorted, pirouetting, arms raised, hands above her head, blade thrust down behind her back to block the next attack.

"Showy," Tahiri countered, thrusting to make her spin away to one side. They squared off again, half-a-meter between their blades, grinning. "This is foreplay, right?"

"Right," Jaina said, though she wasn't sure she meant that. Tahiri was on the warpath again, her body low, feet wide, her blade thrust forward - snaking movements which probably owed more to Yuuzhan Vong techniques with the amphistaff than conventional Jedi or Sith combat drills. "You're going to have to teach me some of those-_Sith!_"

Jaina's lightsaber had abruptly shorted out, becoming a useless dildo in her hands, and Tahiri's blade sang, forcing her to lunge forward and do something like a belly-dancing move beneath the slashing weapon, spinning around and then landing on her ass, sprawled at Tahiri's feet.

"You look good." The tip of the blonde's weapon twitched, aiming at her throat. Then she grinned, and pointed the thing at Jaina's crotch instead.

"I yield," Jaina panted. That had been _close_. She was breathing hard, a little shocked by what had just happened. And she was turned on, of course - but perhaps for slightly different reasons.

"So much for the foreplay," Tahiri laughed, switching off her lightsaber and tossing the weapon away over her shoulder. "Perhaps we need to do more things naked, because we seem to keep having to take off all our clothes."

* * *

_No edits in this one, but a writer here named **Kamil the Awesome** was kind enough to repay my review of a story named "The Once and Future Sword" with a public rec of my other story on this site, "Rebel". Turned out we'd been enjoying each other's writing. So I figured I'd repay the honour by recommending ___"The Once and Future Sword" here - _____a Star Wars time-travel story rated K+ which should be somewhere near the top of the main category page__. If you like a well-written Jaina Solo, you should definitely enjoy that one._


	9. Chapter 9

Jaina wondered if she ought to be more weirded out about the fact that she was chairing the Moff Council. She wondered if the fact she was so sexually submissive was what was making her okay with this.

Instead, she was focused on going over the agenda for discussion in her head, trying to make sure she'd memorised all the key points, and quietly hoping that she looked the part. She'd selected an actual Grand Moff's uniform, a full-dress tunic and knee-breeches in a heavy grey-green fabric, with the multi-coloured rank badge on the lapels, and a full quartet of code cylinders clipped in place in the shoulder pockets. Wearing the same insignia as Tarkin or Daala felt weird, but apparently they were mostly ceremonial, and the formality of the uniform seemed appropriate when you were sitting in a throne-like command chair of the type that Palpatine and Thrawn had used.

The only outward departures from the regulations were the high heels on the black nerfhide knee-boots, which gave her the height she needed to sit in the command chair without swinging her toes, and the slick professional updo in which she was wearing her hair, held together at the back by long shiny Zenji needles.

Tahiri had explained that the Zenji needles could double as throwing weapons, but they'd not had time to do any training with them. They were purely decorative for now. She'd thought about carrying her lightsaber on her belt, but she'd still not repaired the blade, so she opted instead to carry her holdout blaster, tucked into the pocket of her breeches because she couldn't get a good draw from the forearm holster with her wrist-cuffs on.

Tahiri had insisted that she should wear her chrono/comlink bracelets underneath her uniform, along with the matching slimline choker. She had also provided her with a chastity belt and figure-enhancing corset in place of normal underwear, and made some quick last-minute adjustments to the uniform, tailoring the seams to fit more tightly to her body and literally sewing her into the breeches, so that they sat flatter across her crotch and tighter behind her knees and ass than they ever could have with fasteners involved; but that was all invisible to the audience.

She saw another hologram flicker into view, and looked around the room again, counting the empty chairs. She'd not yet replaced the Moffs who were under arrest - she was still reviewing prospective candidates, and she wanted to talk to them in person before she made the decision. But every other seat was filled.

She was struck by the surreal fact that the absent Moffs were basically the same ones she'd been having regular sex with. Whenever she'd been with them as a group, they'd always felt like they were the Empire's government - but here she was, presiding over the Moff Council without them, without any noticeable lack of continuity at all.

"My Moffs," she said, with a smile for everyone. Normally, when she smiled at Moffs, that was because she was about to have sex with them_._ She felt a little colour in her cheeks. "No need for speeches or preamble, I think," she added quickly. "The Empire continues on a steady course without real need for alteration. Let's get down to business."

Nods from the assembled Moffs, as she glanced down quickly at the abbreviated schedule she'd jotted down on the display at the end of her left armrest. "Item one. The arrest of Moff Reige and his co-accused. Does anyone wish to air a view?" She looked around. "Yes, Moff Flennic?"

"I'm mostly curious what _your_ views on this matter are, Grand Moff," the old naval officer grumbled. "You were their ally, perhaps their friend, and there are rumours that you plan to pardon them if they're found guilty."

"My views are that their actions justified their arrest, and require investigation," she exhaled. _Who had told him that?_ "But I also remember their service to the Empire," she added. "Perhaps Moff Drasi can brief us on the progress of the judicial process?"

_Just what_ did_ they do, though?_ she asked herself, sitting back and half-listening to Drasi's brisk report. Jag and his friends had made appropriate noises about good relations with the Jedi and the Alliance, and they'd acquired a reputation as modernisers, but she still hadn't worked out what that had meant in practice - except that Jag had taken her on nice, expensive holidays, and pimped her to his friends for sex, when they'd not been off doing similar things to Tahiri. She'd lobbied for Alliance business interests, too, and Jag had spoken of the possibility of her taking some sort of advisory or flight-testing role at Incom or Sienar.

Until three days earlier, that had all seemed perfectly natural. Apart from the part where the Jedi had traded Tahiri to her husband and his friends, who'd locked her up and kriffed her, which admittedly she hadn't known about.

Drasi had let her see some holocam footage of Moff Reige and Tahiri. She hadn't been able to watch the clips with Jag. Perhaps she might send those to Tenel Ka.

She was having a hard time working out what she felt. From where she was sitting now, some of the decisions they'd made seemed puzzlingly hard to justify, and while her friend was remarkably resilient and upbeat - and Jaina wasn't complaining in the slightest about the way she was using _her_ for sex by way of payback - the betrayals still made her quietly furious.

And in her quieter moments, she realised she didn't know the first thing about running a government. How did the stuff about freedom line up with the corporate agendas, the nice holidays, the expensive bondage toys?

"I haven't yet decided what my contribution to the legal process will be," she said, feeling a little naked without some stray hair to flick back out of her eyes. "I want to wait for the full report into the allegations, the evidence and the prosecutor's recommendation."

Flennic nodded, seeming satisfied. "You are your mother's daughter, Grand Moff."

That was the weirdest complement she'd ever heard, but she smiled nonetheless. "Thank you, Moff Flennic." _Maybe I can do this after all_. "Next on the agenda, the question of our relations with the Hapans. And on this one, I _do_ have a clear opinion, albeit not the position some of you might expect..."


	10. Chapter 10

Jaina hadn't even known the Head of State had an office beside the Council chamber, until Moff Tagge came up to her at the end of the meeting, and suggested they adjourn there. She'd said something surprised, so he put his hand to her back as they walked out, and guided her down the curving corridor to the left - away from where Tahiri had been standing guard at the front entrance, forcing her to turn around and hurry after them - bringing up the rear behind Burren and Sacker.

Jaina wondered if she should have been annoyed by that. But Moff Tagge was on his commlink now, talking to an aide who was reporting figures of some sort, and so she listened in, trying to work out what was being discussed. Before she could collect her other thoughts, they were walking through a big door at the end of the corridor - an entrance which seemed a little underdressed without a polished stormtrooper or two on guard, even though the heavy frame and smooth hatch surface suggested a place which was both important and well-protected.

Her office, she supposed. She might have to put a pair of DT-4s on guard outside, once the shipment arrived from Lando's factory.

She looked around. There was a big desk, a curved arc of ebony wood with a massive leather chair behind, and an area of storage slots off to one side, empty except for a tray with a decanter and a quartet of tumblers. A short row of windows looked out into a little courtyard, centred on an Imperial sculpture beneath a framed expanse of sky - or at least, the space _seemed_ to be a courtyard, but there was no obvious access, or any level area where anyone could stand, and the the side walls tapered away to a narrower and lower structure at the far end, in a way that made the scale and perspective hard to gauge; she wondered if the enclosure was much smaller than she'd thought, an optical illusion designed to provide her with something interesting to look at from behind her desk.

"That went well," Moff Tagge smiled, pocketing his comlink, and pulling out one of his code cylinders. To her surprise, she saw that the cylinder was a blank - rather than a computer jack, the lower part was a simple metal tube with a rounded end, a design which she suddenly understood when he twisted the cap at the top, and popped out a cigar. "Very well, in fact. The preliminary polling is about fifteen percent above my expectations."

"Polling?" she asked, confused. He had a little rectangular device of some sort in his hand now, fetched out from a pocket in his breeches. She watched as he clipped off the end of his cigar with the device, and lit the end with a flame that flicked out from the corner.

Tagge spent a few seconds puffing the cigar to light up. "We had our aides polling the reactions to your performance in the chair," he explained, pocketing his lighter in his breeches. Another puff, a haze of smoke. Then he glanced up as he saw Moff Sacker entering the room. "Eighty-five percent!" he called out triumphantly to her.

Moff Sacker grinned at that. She had produced a cigar of her own, Jaina noted, and was strolling over towards them, already puffing the tobacco into life. There was something about the way she moved that Jaina found disconcertingly attention-grabbing - perhaps to do with the way she had both her hands held up to the cigar, accentuating her lean height, and the way she seemed so at-ease in this man's world. She didn't need heels on her boots. Not like Jaina.

"Eighty-five?" Sacker asked, sounding impressed, looking Jaina over with a sort of admiration, like she was a nek-puppy that had just performed a trick. "She's a winner, Rulff," she grinned.

Jaina still wasn't sure what she'd done, but before she could work that out, something else had caught her attention.

Moff Burren had stopped Tahiri outside the door, and was evidently telling her to wait outside. She felt a flicker of surprise from her friend, muted emotions and protectiveness, and then a tightening of her attitude that matched the straightening of her posture as she nodded in obedience. She supposed the Moffs were used to giving orders, and they all probably thought of her as a sort of stormtrooper - especially since she'd told Jaina she'd have sex with them if she was ordered to - but that didn't make this right.

"Excuse me for a moment, Moffs," she said to Tagge and Sacker, turning towards the door.

Burren was stepping in through the entrance now, with the door sliding shut behind him, leaving Tahiri outside. But Jaina wanted Tahiri in here with them. She could still insist on that.

She quickened her pace towards him. "A word, Moff Burren?"

"You think I should treat your bodyguard like she's not a soldier?" Burren asked, with a steely smile. "Or let her listen in on conversations she's not cleared for?"

"Well, both," Jaina sighed, trying to look defiant. She had her holdout blaster in her pocket, which gave her a certain confidence - she wondered what would happen if she pulled the gun on her Director of Intelligence.

"Come on," he said, putting his free hand to Jaina's back, and simply steering her back over to where Tagge and Sacker were laying out the glasses on the sideboard. "From the way those two are behaving, I suspect that the reactions were very favourable."

She could smell the cigar smoke now, a warm, mellow aroma pitched somewhere between hot chocolate and military uniforms, which somehow reminded her of Lando, while simultaneously suggesting something distinctively Imperial - a strange combination, but one that Jaina realised she rather liked.

"The heroine of the hour," Tagge grinned at her.

"I'm still not sure I follow what's got you three smiling," Jaina said, realising that Sacker had handed her a tumbler glass.

"We had the Moff Council session sent out live on the HoloNet, to gauge reactions around Imperial Space," Sacker explained. "A way to prepare for the vote to confirm your title as Empress. To be honest, we could probably push this through as fast as we want now, considering how well received you were."

"That good?" Burren asked. serving himself a squirt of soda from the decanter. Jaina wasn't entirely sure why the Empire's leaders seemed so keen on _electing_ her all of a sudden, though she supposed that was about trying to look modern and accountable.

"That good," Tagge confirmed, producing a small pocket flask - a complicated-looking construction of chrome and leather. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she apparently had an eighty-five percent approval rating with the Empire's public. She saw a coppery spirit spill from the spout into her glass, and then he clicked a trigger which switched from whiskey to a clearer liquid. "Just water," Tagge reassured her. "Improves the taste."

She sipped the drink, aware of the way he was looking at her - and Sacker had an expectant look on her face, too. "Nice," she smiled, hoping that was the right thing to say. Actually, she definitely liked the drink, complicated and mellow and requiring a slow, sipping approach which she wasn't at all displeased by. "Sith, these boots are killing me."

"Take them off, then," Sacker suggested, with a teasing smirk.

Jaina flushed. "Just because I kneel for other Moffs..."

"No-one was suggesting that you should be doing _that_ for us," Sacker lied, with a flick of her tongue which made clear that she wouldn't object at all. She'd seen the footage of Jaina and Moff Dorja, after all.

"We can save that for the coronation," Burren suggested, playfully.

Jaina nearly snorted her whiskey.

"Symbolic submission," Tagge added, which made her blush.

"So, are you taking the boots off?" Sacker prompted.

"Stop this," Jaina exhaled. She had turned round, trying to keep all three Moffs in her forward arc, but now she had her butt against the hard shelf of the sideboard, the three of them standing round her with their drinks and their cigars. She squirmed a little.

"No," Sacker grinned at her. "I like the idea of you being down at your natural height more often."

"So this is why... you made Tahiri stay outside?" she asked. The alcohol had burned her throat, making her sound breathless and helpless. "You think you can take the place of the other Moffs, in more ways than one?"

"Actually, that's just because we don't want the other Moffs to try to send any listening devices our way," Burren answered. Was that a lie?

"Also, like Moff Burren, she doesn't drink, or smoke, as far as I can tell."

"She will if I order her to," Jaina countered. Tahiri was a cute drunk. That was probably why she tried to stick to soda when there were Moffs around.

"That's good to know," Sacker grinned.

"This is going too far," she said, ducking out between them, turning to look at them. She'd been tempted for a moment, at least by the idea of taking off her boots, but now she was feeling stubborn. "I will be Empress. I will work with you. But I won't get on my knees and flatter your masculinity - or the girl-on-girl equivalent, Moff Sacker." She paused, flushed. "Not yet, anyway. In my own time. The last bunch of Moffs who I had that sort of relationship with turned out to be a bit disappointing."

Was she _apologizing_ to them?

"Fair enough," Sacker nodded, lifting her glass in salute. "I like a girl who knows her mind, even if she's a cute bisexual switch."

Jaina couldn't hide her smile "I've never been described that way before, Moff Sacker."

"Not to your face," Sacker agreed, with a grin that Jaina found she couldn't be annoyed with.

So they stood and talked, a mix of flirting and politics and generally being sociable. Jaina felt a bit more in-control again. Even if Moff Sacker made a play for her crotch at one point, and announced to the other two that she was wearing a chastity belt.

Jaina blushed, and admitted that her unconventional approach to underwear had been Tahiri's idea. That, in turn, led Tagge to cut in with the observation that Tahiri _did_ know Moff Sacker quite well, and was obviously taking appropriate precautions.

By that point, they were all slightly drunk, and Jaina wasn't really feeling threatened by... her girlfriend's ex-girlfriend, she supposed, coming on to her in public. At least, not in front of two other Moffs who'd seen all the holo-footage of her relationships with Jag, and Reige, and Dorja and the others.

Even so, she was a little relieved when Moff Tagge reminded her that they'd scheduled their one-on-one meeting on the Empire's military-logistics policy for that afternoon, which gave Sacker and Burren the opportunity to go and do the things they did when they weren't subtly domming her. Burren had Imperial Intelligence to run, and as the governor of the capital, Sacker was the reluctant head of the Empire's outsized central bureaucracy.

The stuff about Star Destroyers and stormtrooper legions they apparently left mostly to Moff Tagge.

"Are you sober enough for this?" he asked, topping up his whiskey. "Or drunk enough?"

"Hang on." Jaina paused, and tugged the Zenji needles out of her updo.

Tagge poured her a measure anyway. She realised she was grateful.

"That's a relief," she said, shaking out her hair, and laying the long pins on her desktop. "Messy hair, I mean." Sacker had given her a kiss on the cheek when she left, and complimented her on her choice of stylist, then paused outside the door to flirt with Tahiri.

"Should I call your guard in?" Tagge asked, handing her her glass.

"No," Jaina breathed. _Stop being nice_. She could sense in the Force that Sacker had gone, and she didn't want Tahiri to see her like this. Flustered, vulnerable. She tried to cool down by opening the lapel of her tunic at the shoulder. Most of the other fastenings on her uniform were sewn shut, and she didn't really feel like loosening the collar to expose her choker. She leaned on her desk with one hand, tugging off her boots with the other, and then flopped down into the big leather chair. _Surprisingly __comfortable_, she thought. "We need to get through some business."

"The Navy's shipbuilding projections," Tagge nodded, laying a holoprojector on the desk.

So for the next half-hour, Jaina listened as he talked her through what she needed to know - asking questions where she could, trying to figure out the meaning of all the numbers, and the purpose behind the military deployment structures. The further the topic got from a space-superiority starfighter or a squad of special missions troops, the less she felt she understood.

"My husband never paid attention to this stuff," she said. "Did he?"

"You at least have the advantage that you know you might be missing something," Tagge agreed, with a respectful smile. That made Jaina feel self-consciously aware that she was sitting down in front of him like a student with an instructor, and because the big leather chair had evidently been designed for Grand Admiral Pellaeon, she had to either balance on her toes and perch forward, or else relax back with her feet kicking clear of the ground.

Either option made her feel nice and vulnerable. "How come the Empire is able to afford all this stuff?" she asked, flicking her hair back from her face. "I know that an X-wing costs about one-fifty klicks, and most of that's pretty hardwired into the manufacturing costs, but you're getting Preybirds for a third of that. Is that just creative accounting?"

Tagge grinned. "The difference is that we're not _paying_ anyone for them. An X-wing's supply chain is a Galaxy-wide sabacc shuffle of corporate profits for everyone supplying the components and the alloys and the shipping. CEC and KDY, S&K, Fabritech, SoroSuub, Bornaryn. Tendrando. The Desiljic cartel. And TaggeCo."

"TaggeCo just make breakfast ceral these days," she smiled at him.

"The point is," he said, "the Empire runs the big mines and production lines, has a fleet of bulk haulers, and outsources to small independent freighters and technicians when we need something outside the mainstream. That's why we were able to match your front-line navy, even when we were pushed back to a handful of sectors after Orinda. And why we have a lot of support with workers in industry, as well."

"I never met anyone who made that classic pattern of dodgy contacts between Moffs and smugglers sound like official policy before," she countered, realising she was swinging her feet again. She stood up quickly. "Kriff. I feel like a schoolgirl in that chair."

"Is that bad?" he asked.

"Slightly drunk schoolgirl." She picked up her whiskey, swinging round and perching on the side of the desk. "The last place I was in a sit-down-and-look-up learning environment was at the Shadow Academy," she explained. They'd kidnapped her and spent several weeks trying to turn her into a Dark Jedi for the Empire, but she supposed he knew that part. "Things on Yavin and in the Rogue Squadron briefing room were more informal."

"So who did you want to sleep with? Master Brakiss? Tamith Kai?"

"Vess Koga," she laughed. "Or Baron Fel."

"That makes sense," he nodded.

"I always wanted to be a TIE Pilot," she conceded. "They'd have probably kept me there longer if they'd had flight training."

"So we should install a simulator in your quarters?" he asked.

"You could." Somehow, they'd contrived to lean in close, and she decided, for no fathomable reason, that she wanted to kiss him.

Apparently he did as well, because they were making out now. He'd laid his whiskey down to slip an arm around her, and she'd wrapped her hand around the back of his neck to keep him close, levering up a little from her perch on the desk to snog him more deeply.

"That," she said, in a pause for breath.

"More?" he asked.

"Pretty good," she agreed. When was the last time she'd started off this innocently?

Probably the last time she'd snogged someone who she didn't want to know that she was wearing bondage underwear, she thought. Still, the Moff was a decent kisser - hungry and aggressive rather than a master of technique, but that seemed honest, and appropriate for an Imperial high commander. Clearly, he liked her, in ways that weren't entirely to do with her willingness to go around on all-fours in a collar with a pet-tag that said REBEL, and she liked that about him too.

"I'm sorry I'm wearing a chastity belt," she murmured, running her hands down his tunic. Their lips were still flirting. She found his belt with one hand, fumbled to try to start undressing him. "There are... other things I can do."

"I'm not sure I want to take advantage of a drunk Empress," he smiled, with a look in his eyes that made clear he would quite like to, but a generous expression that made clear he was being principled.

"Take advantage of me when I'm sober, then?" she laughed.

"I'll hold you to that," he nodded. He had his hand on her shoulder. "Dinner for two, or three, your place?"

"How is that not taking advantage, Rulff?" She was surprised she'd never called him by his first name before.

"You can cancel when you sober up."

She gave a small snort. "Okay. I like you when I'm drunk."

"You said that when we met."

She took a breath. "I'm... vulnerable to Imperials in uniform."

"I seem to like Empresses."

Another laugh. "I'm easy when I'm drunk."

"Dinner, when you're sober?"

"Okay then." She was surprised how nervous her voice sounded. How long was it since she'd dated anyone? Properly dated, like normal people did? Sex, starfighters and dirty weekends with Jag didn't count, and nor did her odd relationship with Zekk. Kriff, was _Kyp_ the last man who she'd dated? "I'm out of practice."

"I don't mind. Or make Tahiri cook? White apron, red armour...?"

So then they swapped their personal comm details, like teenagers, and smiled at each other a bit.

"I think... I have to pretend to run the Empire for a bit, Moff Tagge."

Tagge straightened his uniform, and walked out, pausing to throw a smile at her before he left. Outside the door, Tahiri saluted him, stormtrooper-obedient.

The door slid shut, and Jaina was alone. Properly alone, for the first time, since the Mofference had interrupted her drunk target-shooting.

In her office, as the ruler of the Empire.

Jaina pulled on her boots again, whipping her hair back in a tail, and tidied up the room. She'd always been the one who tidied up, after Jag's sex parties, and the ones he just sent her along to as a sex-toy for his friends. _Treated like a slave_, she thought, puzzled by why she was still tidying up, when she was so mad at them. She'd answered to names like _Rebel_ and _Jedi_, and she'd not really understood the contempt they felt for her.

_Do I need to be careful of the new Moffs too?_ she wondered. _Probably_. But they seemed a lot less hypocritical, and perhaps less stupid, too.

She picked up the Zenji needles in her hand, noting how well-weighted they were, balanced deftly in her fingers. They felt like the weapons they were, and that made her feel a little more in control, as she headed for the door. The door opened automatically, responding to the comm transcievers and code-clearances embedded in her uniform, and she walked straight through without breaking stride.

Then she realised she'd just been drunkenly trying to get things on with Moff Tagge, with her Force-sensitive girlfriend standing guard outside the door.

"I wondered when you'd get around to that," was Tahiri's only reply as she fell in step, but she was grinning broadly. "You're going to make Moff Sacker jealous. Come on, let's get back up to the top of the Tower. We both need a shower."

"I... agreed to have Moff Tagge round for dinner," Jaina admitted, chewing her lip a little nervous. "You want to call up Sacker, make a double date?"

Tahiri laughed. "Then we'd make Moff Burren jealous. And we so do not want to get on his bad side."

"You'd enjoy that," Jaina teased.

"You're right," Tahiri conceded. "I probably would." 

* * *

_And that, as they say, is a wrap. T__his was originally composed as the first half of a longer story, but this seemed like a natural break. The rest might end up being rewritten as a pair of sequels.__ Thanks, though, to the one or two friends who encouraged me to put this online, and thanks to everyone who's read this, simply for being here. If you have questions, comments, or anything of that sort, don't hesitate to ask..._


End file.
